Absolution of Fate (Fate Series Book 3)

by S. Simone Chavous

  “The mating ceremony; it was not with you, it was with Kaleb. They are in love,” she whispered, lowering her head.

  Lucias stopped and stood perfectly still for a moment. Chloe pushed into his mind and to her surprise found that his rage had dissipated and the tone of his emotions resembled something closer to satisfaction. She soon realized why.

  “Is this true, Chloe? Do you love my son? I believe Asana would appreciate sincerity in your response. Her daughter’s life depends on it.”

  Lucias had known it would only be a matter of time before Chloe realized that his control over her was limited. As expected, and confirmed by his source within The Elite who’d managed to smuggle a message to him, the Elite female he’d left behind would be of little use, remaining under lockup in a highly restricted wing of the compound. Without her assistance, or that of another Elite soldier, he couldn’t gain entry to the compound and would have to draw the enemy out when the time came. When he realized Asana’s defiance, he’d suspected she’d had a vision that revealed that he’d lost his leverage against Chloe, forcing him to act.

  Chloe didn’t hesitate; there was too much at stake and she now knew Lucias’s intentions. Lying would only serve to hurt her friend. “Yes.”

  Lucias actually smiled. No one knew of his other mate bond, the one to the mole he’d implanted amongst his enemies, but as much as he’d wanted to share in Chloe’s power, the fear of breaking that connection had always lingered in the back of his mind. Once a mate bond was completed, no one ever replicated the process; many believed it to be physiologically impossible, so there was no way to know if the previous bond, the one which actually meant something to him, would be eradicated by a new one. Now, with the power of turning humans at stake if Chloe mated, he wouldn’t have to find out and he no longer needed the bond to control his powerful little vampire. He had Kaleb for that.

  “Then it would serve you well to be compliant to all my future requests, if you wish for him to live,” Lucias said, moving towards his son who was starting to awaken. He gestured to one of his soldiers, who produced a large syringe from a nearby table. Lucias remained silent while Kaleb tried to comprehend his surroundings. Seeing Chloe and Asana, he bucked against the chains, but he was still far too weak to break free.

  Don’t fight him, my love. It will be okay. Everything will be okay. I swear to you. Chloe sent as she cried silently at knowing what was coming. The horror of it flashed in Kaleb’s eyes when he saw the syringe. Before the protest manifested on his lips, Lucias plunged the needle into his chest.

  “Take him to one of the cells. After a few hours, send in one of the humans Molly procured this morning.”

  Chloe’s gritted her teeth as she fought to control her rage, which threatened to unleash her power on Lucias for his cruelty. He meant for Kaleb to suffer. First by enduring the pain of the infection for hours without the relief of feeding, and then by forcing him to take a human life; something he knew his son tried to avoid, though he never let on to his knowledge of what he perceived to be a great deficiency of character in his child.

  Two infected made quick work of Kaleb’s chains and whisked him away as instructed, while Chloe watched helplessly.

  “Now, what to do about you, Asana? I did say I would let your daughter live, but you have defied me; you must pay some price for that. I cannot abide such disobedience.”

  Asana fought the urge to cover her eyes as her earlier vision came to life, and Lucias revealed a second syringe and stood over Anna who was still kneeling beside her daughter. Instead, she watched, holding Anna’s gaze as her eyes silently pleaded for help Asana couldn’t give, as Lucias added her to the ranks of his infected with a single shot.

  Asana fell to her knees, as the granddaughter she’d never met screamed and her daughter writhed with the pain of the virus burning through her system.

  “When night falls, return the child to her father. Take this one to a cell to complete transformation,” Lucias ordered, eyeing Asana and Chloe.

  Asana looked up at him, clearly defeated by what had transpired, which made him smile. “Please, I beg you, let me speak to my granddaughter; let me meet her, just once,” she begged.

  Lucias’s smile broadened and he reached down to grip her chin. “I think not.”

  CHAPTER 11 - A New Hope

  Alexa lay awake, having only slept for a few minutes before her conscience got the better of her. She couldn’t stop thinking about Dante. Though she knew he probably felt some peace in being with Layla, she still worried for her friend, with Lucias’s virus overtaking his body and mind, and she had an idea that she just couldn’t shake. She turned to Ethan, seeing his handsome features perfectly in the dark as he slept. She’d felt his exhaustion, which had been a constant in him for the past weeks throughout which he barely slept, even by vampire standards, knowing he would be out for quite a while still. Alexa lifted the arm covering her stomach and slid towards the edge of the bed. Ethan stirred, reaching for her in his sleep, so she moved her pillow under his arm, which he pulled in close to his body and settled. Alexa reached for his mind and smiled, seeing him dreaming of their family all together, happy and content for the first time in what seemed like forever. She hoped the image in his mind was truly in their futures.

  Satisfied that he wasn’t going to wake, Alexa moved silently through the darkness, gathering her clothes from the floor and getting dressed in seconds before she slipped out the door.

  It was still early and, based on the cacophony of thoughts floating about, most of the compound was awake and buzzing about the day’s events. Alexa pushed up a layer in her shields to block them out and another to lessen the impact of her bond with Ethan, concerned that he would feel that she was gone or some emotion in her would wake him before she reached her goal. Since becoming a vampire, she’d learned to channel her ability in ways that weren’t possible while her true nature was repressed by the witch’s spell. Her talent wasn’t as powerful or versatile as Chloe’s, but she could zero in on certain streams of consciousness without any background thoughts from others nearby and seek a mind from a greater distance.

  Moving towards the mind she sought, she felt a small tinge of guilt for what she was doing, knowing that Ethan would be furious, but she had to see Dante and help him if she could. He’d been a great friend to her, a source of comfort and hope when she needed it most; an ally when she fought to save her mate so she couldn’t just abandon him. She pushed down her feelings of guilt and pressed on.

  Turning into the other residential wing, Alexa was relieved to find the corridor between the rooms, which were occupied mainly by soldiers, empty. Not that she was doing anything wrong, but she preferred to avoid explaining herself to anyone she didn’t have to. She focused her telepathy, listening as she moved, trying to find her target since she had no idea which room was his. Fairly confident that she had the right one, she stood at the door and took a deep breath, steeling her nerves before she pressed the button.

  She jumped slightly when the door flew open without any response through the intercom. “Alexa, is everything all right?” Commander Claesson asked, his eyes shooting around with the discerning gaze of a soldier with millennia of experience, assessing the area and searching for possible threats.

  “Yes, of course; I’m so sorry to disturb you, but could I speak to you for a moment?”

  His eyebrows bunched over his eyes for a moment before he sighed and stepped back, gesturing for her to enter. There was a part of him, a rather old fashioned part, that thought to refuse her, simply because a lady shouldn’t be in alone in the room of a man who wasn’t her husband, but he was finally trying to catch up with the times.

  “How can I help you, Alexa?” he queried, closing the door.

  “I know this is asking a lot, sir, but please hear me out,” she said, pacing nervously as she spoke.

  The Commander nodded, indicating that he was willing to listen. “Ethan is cured, that much is sure; because he took my blood.”
>
  “Yes, because he’s your mate and you were already linked. The doctors think it may have been the preexisting connection that kept the infection from fully invading Ethan’s cells, keeping a small part of him free of it.”

  “Right, but what if they’re wrong; what if it’s just my blood that cured him?”

  The Commander shook his head. “Of course we considered that possibility, but it’s not the case. Samples of your blood were combined with some from Dante and Layla with no change.”

  “I knew that already, but did the virus spread to my cells in the sample?” she asked, almost certain that she was on to something.

  The Commander looked at her, obviously intrigued. “I’m not sure.”

  “Would you take me to the containment unit, to the lab? There’s something I want to try?”

  “I’m going to need you to be more specific if you expect for me to break the protocols I set, which you’ve already ignored once today,” the Commander replied, giving her a look.

  “Of course,” she said, stopping in front of him. “When I was in the cell with Ethan, I drank his blood while he was drinking mine. What if I’m immune to the virus, but in order for the immunity in my blood to be shared, I have to drink from the infected?”

  The Commander thought for a moment. She could be on to something, but even if she was right, her idea was not without some pretty significant obstacles.

  “Even if you’re right, how the hell are we supposed to test it? It’s too dangerous for you to get close enough to one of them and,” he said looking at her pointedly, “I’m venturing a guess that you haven’t shared this little idea with your husband, since I doubt he’d let you out of his sight willingly at his point. Not to mention, as a bonded male myself, I know with absolute certainty he’ll have to be locked up and probably tranquilized before he’ll let you feed from another male.”

  "That's why we have to go now, while Ethan is still sleeping," Alexa said. "And I do think there's a way for me to get close enough; if I can get through to Dante, maybe I can bite him the same way they draw blood for the test."

  "I'm all for putting an end to this damn virus, but I really think you need to talk to your husband about this first. Besides, we can’t spare the blood to coerce Dante or Layla to cooperate right now; they’ve practically cleaned out our stores already. "

  “I think I can get Dante to give me his arm without offering blood and you know the saying, it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. Like you said, there's no way Ethan will let me drink from another man willingly; we have to do this without him knowing. The more time that passes, the harder it will be for me to reach Dante until the virus runs its course. You said yourself it can take weeks or months, in some cases, before the infected starts to resemble who they were before and even then, they’re not the same. We don’t know what Lucias has planned, but he has my daughter and we’re running out of time. If we have to, we can use tranquilizers. It’s what Dante would want.”

  The Commander thought for a moment. He and the High Commander had been doing everything in their power to prepare for the fight ahead; they were on the verge of implementing the human integration protocols, and had a few tricks up their sleeves, but as it stood, defeating Lucias was still a long shot. If they found a cure for the virus, then maybe, just maybe they could take away Lucias’s greatest advantage and end the war once and for all.

  “You know I’m probably going to end up losing a limb for being a part of this,” the Commander teased, though in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think mutilation was a real possibility when Ethan found out what they were up to. He was, by far, the strongest of their kind; the Commander was well aware of that fact, having spent countless years trying to persuade the elusive vampire to join his ranks.

  Alexa smiled, feeling victorious and excited as the Commander acquiesced and headed for the door.

  ✧

  Alexa followed Commander Claesson through the first door to the containment unit where Dante and Layla were still being held. They’d been left in the cell together for the time being because, despite the number of years they’d been researching the virus, there was a lot they didn’t know about it and all of its side effects. With Dante being newly infected, they worried what impact the amount of sedative that would be required to knock him out would have on his body.

  Per the Commander’s request, Dr. Jones and two other members of his team were already right outside the second door. Their excitement was palpable. When he’d called the doctor, Commander Claesson filled him in on Alexa’s thoughts about how to activate her immunity in others.

  Dr. Jones sped over the instant she stepped through. “Alexa, I’m embarrassed to say we never considered what effect the taking of Ethan’s blood while he drank from you may have had. Now that you presented the idea, it makes perfect sense. It’s genius really. It’s just a theory, but I suspect when you ingest infected blood, it activates your immune response; but given the speed of our metabolisms, the signs of that response were cycled out before we drew your blood for testing.”

  “I just hope it works,” Alexa replied, looking to the Commander who was about to open the main door. “I think I need to go in alone,” she said, looking through the small window to the cell where Dante was being held. She couldn’t see him, but she could sense his tormented mind. “Just for a few moments to see if I can still reach him; if we all go in, his bloodlust will surely take over.”

  “Fine, Alexa, but under no circumstances are you to open that cell. We installed a key code panel after your stunt earlier, but don’t try to tell me you don’t know the code; I know you’ve been poking around in my head.”

  She didn’t bother trying to deny it; she had pushed into his mind when his shields had been relaxed just enough while she was trying to sell him on the idea of bringing her down to the containment unit. Knowing a person’s thoughts can be quite helpful in the art of persuasion. She had no intention of opening the cell; she knew it was too great a risk even though she was probably immune.

  She nodded in response. “So we’re clear,” he continued, removing his sidearm from the holster and pulling the slide, “if you free either of them, as much as I’ll hate it, I’ll put them down. I can’t risk the other lives on this compound, and you shouldn’t be willing to, either.”

  “I understand,” Alexa replied.

  With that, he stood clear as the door opened and Alexa moved through.

  ✧

  Alexa barely breathed as she moved towards Dante’s cell. Though she knew they wouldn’t be able to hear her even if she screamed, she crept across the room quietly until she was directly in front of the enclosure. Only the security lights were on in the lab, so the cell was dark, but she could see Dante and Layla perfectly with her preternatural night vision. She reached for the button to make contact with Dante, but jumped back when he suddenly appeared on the other side of the glass; completely naked and only inches away from her with his red eyes glowing bright in the darkness.

  There was a fierce hunger and pain in them, but also something else. Recognition.

  Alexa she placed her palm against the glass, careful to keep her gaze upwards. Dante’s red eyes shot to it, their bright glow reflecting off the glass. He looked back at Alexa, inching closer as he raised his own palm to rest on the barrier directly over hers. A single tear slid down her cheek. Dante was still in there and he still knew her. They were connected.

  Their connection was broken when the room practically vibrated from a roar just outside the room. Alexa cringed as the anger swept over her despite the barrier she’d placed to lessen the mate bond. Ethan. He was awake, right outside the door, and a long way beyond pissed off.

  Alexa looked over her shoulder, her palm still over Dante’s as she saw Ethan’s green-gray eyes glowing back at her through the tiny window of the door. She snatched her hand away and sped to the entrance as it slid open. Before words could even register in her mind, Ethan had her in his arms
, squeezing her so tightly that she could barely breathe. She was surprised at the sense of relief she felt passing through their connection, but it was short lived as he finally released her and his anger began to seep back in.

  “Two things,” he began, staring at her with eyes full of intensity, “I’m sorry, I know it’s brutish of me, or whatever you want to call it, but you can’t leave my sight without telling me where you’re going, at least for a while. Second of all, we’re leaving. The Commander filled me in on your little plan. No. Fucking. Way.” he said, punctuating each word.